Legal challenges on cards

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A catastrophe was expected and there were some personal ones:
some of the Americans who turned up to vote found that they could
not, either because their registration had gone missing, or the
queues were too long, or the new electronic voting machines were
too slow.

By and large, however, the election proceeded without the feared
debacle. But, given the closeness of the vote in some states, there
may yet be legal challenges.

The state with the most problems was probably Ohio, which also
happened to be a key state for both candidates.

There was a legal battle over voting in the hours before the
polls opened, but it was resolved. Republicans feared fraud,
because hundreds of thousands of new voters were added to the rolls
during the campaign.

The party said it would send thousands of observers into the
polling stations to challenge the credentials of new voters.

The Democratic Party sued in Federal Court, arguing that voters
would be intimidated by the Republican challengers. The Republicans
appealed and, in the end, the challengers were granted permission
to visit polls.

However, there were few reports of people being turned away, and
few voters said they were challenged by Republican observers.
The New York Times reported seeing more Democratic lawyers
in the polling places than Republicans.

Voters at predominantly black precincts in eastern Cleveland
said they had not even seen a Republican challenger.

"I'm a Democratic challenger," said Patricia Blochowiak. "I'm
mainly here to make sure no Republican challenger interferes with
someone's right to vote."

She had yet to see a Republican challenger, however, at the
polling place at Lakeside Baptist Church.

People in Ohio did complain that they had to wait in the rain
for up to four hours to cast their ballots. They blamed the new
voting machines, saying it took some people a long time to figure
out how to use them.

In Cleveland, the turnout forced many polling places to stay
open beyond the official 7.30pm closing time.

There may yet be legal challenges, because there were a few
problems with the new voting machines. In Detroit, one machine
refused to start and had not been fixed by noon on election
day.

In Philadelphia, observers claimed that machines started with
votes already cast.

The new machines did slow down voting in some states, as people
struggled to come to terms with the new technology.